A novel submodule-based modular multilevel converter to minimize the magnitude of circulating current and to balance the capacitor voltage

The capacitor voltage unbalancing is the common problem in modular multilevel converter. This problem occurs even at the fundamental frequency due to the modulation technique which generates the unequal periods of the gate signals. To reduce this problem, this paper introduced a new submodule (SM)-based modular multilevel converter (MMC). The proposed MMC can generate the 2N + 1 level at the load side. By properly controlling the arm current of the converter, DC capacitor voltage in each submodule is balanced at its base voltage and improves the circulating current during unequal periods of the gate signals without using controller. This paper presents the performance of new submodule-based modular multilevel converter. Finally, the proposed converter is compared with the conventional modular multilevel converter topologies with and without third harmonic injection method. Further the proposed structure and presented techniques have been simulated in the MATLAB/SIMULINK, and the practical implementation has been done using hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test.